Dolphin Facts for Kids

Dolphin Facts for Kids

The great thing about working with your child at home is that you can pick up on their interests.  Many children like dolphins and so I have decided to do this page on dolphin facts for kids and how that might be the start of a project.

I loved dolphins from an early age and enjoyed the children’s TV programme “Flipper”.  That ages me!  Flipper was a bottle-nosed dolphin who looked like this one.

Start with a video clip.

There are lots of video clips you could choose from.

Here is one from YouTube called ”Five Facts About Dolphins”:

Here are some of the facts that are mentioned. There are 43 species of dolphin, including 38 marine varieties and 5 river varieties.  Dolphins can swim at 34 miles an hour. Killer whales, which are a type of dolphin can be about 32 ft long. Dolphins are mammals not fish, and dolphins breathe through their blowholes whereas fish breathe through their gills.

You could just watch the video and then discuss it and see how many of the facts your child picked up on.  Or you could write out some questions first so that they’re listening out for the answers and writing them down.

Basic facts on a webpage

Here I’m going to give you some websites that should be fairly accessible to a lot of children and some questions to go with them.

You can copy and paste the questions into a Word document or something similar and then the child will be able to answer the questions from the information on the website.  It might be interesting to see how many questions are they can answer before looking at the website and use that to check there answers. Bear in mind that not all websites will give you the same information so you need to decide what you think is the most likely right answer, or whether you decide that nobody really knows the right answer.

Equally, you could start with one question and a suggested website and then your child could tell you what else they found out that was interesting. You could then follow up with further questions or perhaps give them a fact that you know and they can tell you if they already knew that from their reading.  They might like to give you a test. You can decide how much of an expert you can pretend to be.

http://www.sciencekids.co.nz/sciencefacts/animals/dolphin.html

How clever do you think dolphins are?

Are dolphins vegetarian?

What whale is really a dolphin?

Which dolphin is the most common?

What are male,  female and young dolphins called?

How many individuals are there usually in a dolphin school or pod?

Give some reasons as to why dolphins are so popular with humans.

How do dolphins breathe?

Write something about dolphins’ eyesight and hearing?

How to dolphins communicate with each other?

How do dolphins find objects?

Name one type of dolphin which may have become extinct.

What do humans do that is dangerous for dolphins?

 

https://dolphins.org/kids_dolphin_facts

Dolphins live in the sea. Do they drink the water?

How many teeth do dolphins have?

What do dolphins use their teeth to do?

Can dolphins see at night?

Do dolphins see in colour?

Can dolphins see underwater?

Can dolphins see above water?

This is one of my favourite questions. Do dolphins have hair?

In what way are dolphins different from fish?

http://uk.whales.org/whales-and-dolphins/facts-about-dolphins

https://defenders.org/dolphin/basic-facts

 

More Videos

All About Dolphins for Kids: Dolphins for Children – FreeSchool

This video is a bit longer than the last one. It is 5 minutes long. It recaps on quite a lot of the answers to the questions that we’ve got above and it gives some extra information.

Here’s another dolphin video – also about 5 minutes long.

This video is for older children and has some quizzes and lesson materials to go with it.

Ed-Ted lesson material –  https://ed.ted.com/lessons/how-smart-are-dolphins-lori-marino

Does it help dolphins to help humans?

Here is a fascinating article about dolphins that have been helping humans fish since 1847

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/phenomena/2012/05/01/dolphins-that-help-humans-to-catch-fish-form-tighter-social-networks/

 

Is your child ready for some quizzes?

Try these:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/quizzes/bp-dolphin-true-or-false – Just six questions but will you know all the answers?

http://www.funtrivia.com/playquiz/quiz2430881bd5088.html 10 questions

http://easyscienceforkids.com/free-interactive-dolphins-quiz-fun-science-quiz-for-kids/

http://www.dolphinsfilm.com/learn/Quiz1.htm

This one is harder but it marks itself as it goes along, so you get to learn at the same time.

http://quipoquiz.com/quiz/dolphins/

More challenging questions, but again you get the answers as you go along so it is interesting to do.  The questions are randomised so you get some of the same questions and some new ones if you do it again.

https://www.purposegames.com/game/dolphin-quiz-game#

(I couldn’t do all these and I couldn’t see the answers.)

At “All The Tests” you can do other quizzes or create your own.

Would you like to know how to draw a dolphin?

Try following the instructions on this video:

Or take a look at this page http://www.wedrawanimals.com/how-to-draw-a-dolphin/  or http://www.hellokids.com/c_26032/drawing-for-kids/drawing-tutorials-step-by-step/animals/how-to-draw-a-dolphin-for-kids .

This one is a lot more complex https://design.tutsplus.com/tutorials/how-to-draw-a-dolphin-step-by-step–cms-28672

 

Some other fun Dolphin activities

http://www.dolphinkind.com/dolphin_fun.html – a variety of different activities.

http://www.dltk-kids.com/animals/mdolphin.html – make a dolphin model.

 

For you as an adult

A teacher’s guide – this is to go with a particular film – but it does have a lot of general information in it.

http://www.dolphinsfilm.com/learn/DolphinsTG.pdf

An article from the Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/11/china-extinct-dolphin-returned-yangtze-river-baiji

This was one of my favourite books as a youngster:

The Day of the Dolphin by Robert Merle https://amzn.to/2IDZsLx  I suspect it’s rather dated!

There was also a film to go with it. The Day of the Dolphin [ 1973 ] by George C. Scott https://amzn.to/2IBdpd2

Some Children’s Dolphin Books from Amazon

Winter’s Tail: How One Little Dolphin Learned to Swim Again by Craig Hatkoff https://amzn.to/2rYeaqa

Everything Dolphins: Dolphin Facts, Photos, and Fun that Will Make You Flip  https://amzn.to/2ICoWbW

Dolphins: Amazing Pictures & Fun Facts on Animals in Nature (Our Amazing World Series)  https://amzn.to/2KHMMUf

Dolphin Boy by Michael Morpurgo https://amzn.to/2J0DHZO

 

Let me know what you thought of this article, what else you would have liked to see here, and any requests you have for other articles.  Just drop me a comment below.